


For the Love of a Man on the Radio

by daftalchemist



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst and Porn, DB!Carlos - Freeform, M/M, More Tags To Come As More Is Written, non-canon canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:39:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daftalchemist/pseuds/daftalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is not quite who he seems to be</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> beta thanks to sub3rduck

His name is Carlos, only it isn’t. He doesn’t have a name, or he doesn’t think he does. He doesn’t remember anyone calling him by a name, if they ever did. He doesn’t remember a lot of things before the awareness began, but he remembers enough. He remembers that he is a scientist. He does science things that involve syringes and medical electrodes and lots and _lots_ of screaming, but not _his_ screams. He doesn’t know what kind of science this is called, only that Strex believes it is important science, and that he doesn’t think he wants to do it anymore, not since he obtained the awareness.

The awareness is new. It comes slowly in fitful bursts, forcing him to remember things that he thinks maybe he isn’t supposed to remember. He can hear the screams, but there is no one screaming. He can see the blood, but there is no one bleeding. He thinks maybe these things happened, and maybe he did them. They seem so real, like he can touch them. Place the electrodes on the temples, the forehead, the chest, the stomach. Monitor the heart rate from the finger. Which one? _All_ of them. Fill the syringes. There are six. They are different colors. They are injected into the chest, near the heart. The heart makes the colors mix faster. Mixing the colors is important; it must happen before the experiment can begin. An hour is sufficient. Ignore the screams. There is a lot though. _Ignore them_. When the hour is up, flip the switch. The room darkens and hums. The humming is loud, so loud it smothers the screams, and the screams are _very_ loud. The room brightens, the humming stops, the screaming also stops. The specimen is sleeping. The heart rate monitor says so. No heart. Asleep. Bring in the next specimen.

He doesn’t understand why they allow him to have the awareness, why they let it grow each day. Perhaps they don’t know about it? He receives his daily injections as he always does, but they numb his mind less and less. He thinks maybe he is growing tolerant of the doseage, but tells no one, and no one notices. This seems like a good thing, at first. Later, it’s a terrible thing. He doesn’t want to hear the screaming, the begging, please don’t hurt me, I have a family, let me _go_.

“I am a scientist,” he says, but they don’t understand. He _has_ to do the _science_. It’s what scientists _do_.

There are high walls all around him. He sees them every day, but only from the inside. He lives inside the walls, he thinks, but he also _works_ inside the walls, but he doesn’t _live_ where he _works_. He doesn’t understand how he never leaves the walls, but he knows he can. Or that _people_ can, but they haven’t showed him how. He doesn’t remember ever being outside of them, but he’s sure he must have been. There is a desert out there, he knows. He can’t see it from inside, but he knows it’s there. It has red rocks, dusty winds, quails, creosote, saguaros. He thinks he’d like it better outside the walls, away from the screaming and the syringes.

The specimens offer him money, power, _anything_. They don’t want to die, and he wrinkles his nose at the suggestion. He doesn’t kill them, he would never do that, now lie back and scream and take a nap, next specimen please.

He begins to suspect he’s killing people.

He thinks maybe it’s the syringes, but he doesn’t know which one. He tries removing different colors, trying to find the one that kills. Things happen-- _weird_ things--and Strex is pleased. The specimens don’t die, but they can _hardly_ be said to be living either. They grow, warp. They are incredibly sick, and he _made_ them sick. Strex is ecstatic; they get to devise new experiments for their new specimens. He feels terrible. He stops playing with the colors. They die again. _He_ makes them die again.

The walls are very tall, but there are entrances all over, ones that aren’t even guarded. It seems odd to him that he has lived inside these walls for so long, and never once attempted to leave them when he could so _easily_ leave. In fact, _no one_ leaves, and isn’t that odd? He thinks it’s because they don’t have the awareness, that only the injections keep them inside the walls. But he _does_ have the awareness, so he _can_ go outside the walls…

The specimens are… different, but he doesn’t know how. Strex has altered them in some way, he’s sure of it, but he doesn’t have equipment to find out what has been done. All he has are electrodes, syringes, a switch, and their screams. They don’t scream as much, which seems odd. He suspects it’s because of their apparent differences; something that dulls their ability to sense pain? The glass in the room shatters when he flips the switch, which has never happened before. He wonders if that’s connected to the lack of screams. He wonders if their screams are silent. They still die.

The walls beckon to him, but not with words. It’s a pull in his mind, like he knows it will be better for him outside without realizing that he knows it. He _wants_ to go, but...won’t they find him? He’s never missed his experiments before. He doesn’t remember ever having been sick, but he must have been at some point… right?

These specimens don’t talk, don’t scream. He thinks that’s odd, until he notices the horrible scars on their throats. They _can’t_ scream. He doesn’t know why Strex would suddenly take offense to hearing the agony their experiments cause, but he knows this isn’t the right way to ease their consciences. He does enjoy the quiet though. It’s nice to think the specimens might not be feeling any pain for once.

He goes through the wall, the desert sun blinding him as he steps out from its immense shadow. If anyone sees him leave, they don’t chase after him, don’t try to stop him. The day is incredibly bright, but surprisingly cool, as though the sun isn’t working properly. He doesn’t mind though, because he has to walk. There is no road or sidewalk leading to a discernable town; no landmarks to guide him on his way to… wherever his way would lead him. He walks and walks, but doesn’t know for how long. His feet ache, and he can’t remember ever feeling so thirsty. He begins to wonder if it was such a good idea to leave Strex. They may not have been the nicest employers, but they gave him food and water, and wasn’t that more important anyway?

He thinks he should go back, despite how long he’s been walking. It makes sense to go back, but then… then he sees it. It’s a town twinkling in the dark desert night, as though it has stolen the very stars from the vast, empty sky; the black of its void slowly warming to a rich purple as the sun rises. It looks… nice. Quiet even. He stumbles forward, rushing towards this glittering oasis, no longer aware of his exhaustion and his hunger. He knows no pain, only hope.

The town is quaint. There are no enveloping walls, just one area partitioned off with towering obsidian slabs that no one pays any mind. He ignores it too, not wanting to look like an outsider. Remembering his hunger and thirst, he rushes into the first building he spies that appears as though it may contain food, and it does. Pizza, or so the sign says. He’s not quite sure what that is, but it looks edible enough. He doesn’t have money, he realizes, but it hardly matters. The man behind the counter is standing slack-jawed, his head rolled back and his eyes frozen in an empty stare. “Rico”, his name tag says, and he is too busy listening to the dusty old radio on the wall behind him to notice a missing slice or two.

There is a man on the radio. His voice is smooth and soothing, almost like the injections Strex forces its employees to take every day. His words are calming. He is talking about a man who is… perfect. A man who is respected and admired. A man who is… a scientist. A scientist who _just came to town_ , and who is already loved so deeply by the man with the beautiful voice.

The pizza is forgotten.

He doesn’t know what type of science the lab is for. There are no electrodes, no blood-soaked tables with cracked leather straps. It hardly seems like a place for a scientist to be at all, least of all one as respected as the one spoken of on the radio.

There was a man. A scientist. His jaw was strong and square, his teeth like a military cemetery. His hair was… perfect, honestly. His name was Carlos, but he doesn’t need his name anymore. He doesn’t need his life anymore either. He is no longer able to live it.

His name was Carlos, only it isn’t now.


	2. Chapter 2

His name is Carlos. Everyone calls him that. He is a scientist; an _important_ scientist. All of the other scientists look to him for answers, but he has no answers to give. Science is hard, and Night Vale, the town he lives in now, is _weird_.

The lab he works in is next door to the pizza place he stole food from, but the man “Rico” never mentions the incident, and Carlos doesn’t bring it up or repay him. Not for those specific slices, at least. He pays for the other ones he gets when he eats there, and he eats there frequently. He _has_ to; the man on the radio told him so.

The man on the radio says many things, and many of those things are about him: Carlos, the scientist. Carlos does not know the man’s name, but he’s sure it’s wonderful. He often thinks about asking what his name is, but is afraid to talk to anyone; afraid that people will know he is not who he says he is if they just talk to him long enough.

But that man, that man with the gorgeous voice, that man who says he _loves_ him… he can talk to that man, and he does. He tells him wonderful things. He tells him about houses that don’t actually exist, even though they do. He tells him about earthquakes that happen all the time, but no one feels them. The fancy equipment his teammates showed him insists they happen, though he’s _still_ not convinced that’s actually science. The man sounds so interested in what Carlos has to say, like Carlos is the smartest and most amazing person to ever exist. It’s strange, Carlos thinks, that someone who doesn’t even know him should find him so wonderful, but he supposes it’s not so bad. He thinks the man on the radio is wonderful too, especially when he tells the listeners about all the science things he says.

There is a lot of science to do, and Carlos doesn’t know how to do any of it. It involves a lot of odd devices with buttons and dials, scopes of various magnifications, glassware of different tapered shapes and sizes. There are no syringes and very minimal screaming, and no one else seems to find this odd. Carlos doesn’t know what to do with any of the equipment, but no one seems to notice. They are all _incredibly_ busy doing important things, he thinks. Some are checking clocks; many, _many_ clocks. They say the sun didn’t set at the right time, and they’re concerned. Carlos doesn’t understand why; don’t they know about how the sun doesn’t work quite right? He thinks scientists should _probably_ know things like that, _if_ they are, in fact, scientists.

The scientists choose him as their science leader, which is a strange new experience. He’s never been in charge of anything before, and he’s not sure what to do. He mostly stands around with a clipboard, pretending to be thinking very deep thoughts about graphs he doesn’t understand, and everyone thinks he is very smart because of it. They come to him with questions about the things they’re studying, looking for his expertise.

“What do you think this readout means?” they ask him.

“I don’t know,” he says, and they nod very sagely as they rub their chins and hum thoughtfully.

“Yes, it’s very strange, isn’t it?” they say, and Carlos just nods in response because there is nothing else to be said. He doesn’t know what is strange or what isn’t. He doesn’t know anything about the odd science they do in the lab. He is just happy that not knowing the answer seems to _be_ the answer.

He worries, though, that the scientists will figure out that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. They are _so_ smart and doing… whatever it is they’re doing, and they’re doing _good_ at those things. Carlos is nervous, and wonders if it was a bad idea to live this life. He takes an odd looking box covered in wires and tubes, and leaves, saying he has important science research to do, and no one questions it.

The town is small, but also big, and there are many people on the empty streets. They don’t speak to Carlos, but they smile, wide and toothy, though their eyes are dead. They know him, they _all_ know him. The beautiful-voiced man on the radio has made him very popular in a very short time. They are the listeners, he thinks. The man also talks about the listeners a lot, or talks _to_ them anyway, and they all listen. Even if they aren’t near a radio, they still somehow listen and know what the man is saying.

He has learned a lot about the town from the man in such a short time. There is a dog park, but he cannot go near it, or even look at it. There are angels, but they aren’t real, which is good because Carlos has seen a couple of them already, and they would be _terrifying_ if they were real. There is a harbor that the man says is beautiful, and a bowling alley with its own subterranean city. It is truly a wonderful and horrifying town with so many amazing things to learn about, and Carlos will learn about them all because he is a scientist. That’s what everyone says, especially the wonderful man on the radio, and he will not let them down.

The radio station is very old, older than any of the other buildings Carlos has seen. He thinks that it must have been the first one to be built, long before any houses to contain eager listeners were even constructed, and Carlos thinks that’s wonderful, as though they _knew_ that someday a man with a magnificent voice would need the radio station.

The inside is even older, and Carlos wonders how they manage to make the equipment in the building work at all when the lights barely seem to want to stay on. He also thinks it’s odd that there doesn’t seem to be many other people working there. Radio shows are fairly complex things, and would require a lot of help to run them, wouldn’t they? The people he _does_ find roaming the halls seem… drained, but he doesn’t know of what exactly. He would have to do science to them to find out, but… maybe later.

He doesn’t know which way to go, roaming the halls mostly aimlessly. _Mostly_. He knows the man is here somewhere, and he knows he would like to meet him, but… he’s scared. The man seems to know everything that happens in the town, which is strange because he doesn’t seem to ever _not_ be on the radio, and Carlos worries that the man will know he’s not who he claims he is.

He can hear his voice, though there are no speakers for it to emanate from. It’s as though the whole building is alive with it, every doorframe and windowpane vibrating with his sonorous tones. It burrows inside his head in an incredibly pleasant manner, and Carlos smiles at the warmth that it pours into his mind. He’s talking about the clocks and the sun setting, claiming that Carlos told him about it, but that isn’t true. No one told him about it. He just knows.

The voice becomes louder, clearer, until it sounds almost like he’s hearing it with his ears instead of just the echoes reverberating off his skull. There is a door immediately to Carlos’ right. He opens it, and there he is. His eyes are like moonlight, and his smile is more real than the ground beneath Carlos’ feet.

“Carlos,” he says, and Carlos’ gut twists wonderfully tight at having such a divine voice say his name. “Can I help you?”

Carlos’ gut twists again, but much less wonderfully this time. He doesn’t know what to say to this man; this wonderful, remarkable man whose smile is piercing through his soul as he patiently waits for an answer.

Carlos holds up the blinking device he’s clutching in his shaking hands. “I’m here to do science.”

The man’s eyes light up. “Oh, of course! What are you testing?”

Carlos’ heart lodges itself deep in his throat as he struggles to find an answer, his hands shaking much worse now. “Uh… materials. I need to find… how many materials are here.”

“Yes, of course!” the man exclaims happily, and beckons Carlos further into the room. “Please, go right ahead. Don’t let me get in your way.”

Carlos thinks that he would probably like for the man to get in his way, but doesn’t say it. Instead, he shuffles around the room, pointing the odd blinking box at different things. It makes a shrill whistling sound when placed near some things, and erratic beeps near others. He doesn’t know what either sound means, but wishes he did because the box _erupts_ with worrying sounds when placed near the microphone.

“How odd,” the man says, completely entranced by Carlos’ work. “What do you suppose _that_ means?”

“It means,” Carlos begins, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as unsteady as his heart feels. “It means… there’s a _lot_ of materials here. You should probably leave the building. I think it might not be safe.”

The man hums thoughtfully, his beautiful eyes so concerned, and a pang of guilt pierces through Carlos’ chest to know he made this sweet man look that way.

“It sounds very important,” he says, and his radiant smile returns. “Why don’t you stay for an interview and tell the listeners all about it?”

Carlos struggles to remember how his lungs work for a moment, then shakes his head in as dignified a manner a panicked person can manage. “No, I can’t because… I have more science to do. There’s a _lot_ of science in this town, so I’m going to go do that. Now.”

Carlos turns and runs, his heart steadily hammering away at his ribcage, threatening to force its way out of his chest. He can’t believe he just talked _science_ to _that man_ , and even sounded _competent_ about it! As he runs through the halls and back to the lab, he can hear the voice echoing in his mind, telling the listeners about the materials and Carlos’ strong jaw. Carlos clutches the blinking box to his chest and smiles until his cheeks ache.


	3. Chapter 3

The man’s name is Cecil.

Carlos knows this because his phone number is in his phone under that name. He doesn’t know how he got Cecil’s phone number, or how he got a _phone_ , but he has both, and he has never felt happier.

He is happy for other reasons too. He is learning _science_ , or at least whatever strange off-brand version of it Night Vale uses. This makes him happy because science has really picked up in town. There are always weird things happening, but those things seem to be happening a lot more often lately. Carlos tries to stay on top of everything, but… it’s just so _hard_. There was a big glowing cloud that gave everyone dead animals, but no one seemed to really want the animals. Carlos didn’t understand why since they seemed _perfect_ for science, but even his colleagues--which is what he calls them now that he actually does science--looked at him with their glazed eyes and groaned judgmentally at him for amassing such a large pile of bodies.

“B-but the _science_ ,” he insisted, but they only groaned louder, their tongues lolling out of their mouths as they rolled their eyes in disgust.

It’s hard to remember sometimes that the scientists don’t know _real_ science. Strex would _love_ having a large stack of animal bodies to experiment on, he knows.

Carlos thinks about Strex often, though he’s not sure why. He _loves_ Night Vale. The air feels alive, and the food is filling and good. Or he thinks it is. He can’t honestly remember what food was like at Strex, or when or where he ate it. He _must_ have been given food, he thinks, and water, but… he can’t remember what the water was like either.

He can’t remember a lot of things, and that worries him. He had thought that as the awareness grew stronger, he would remember more and more, but….

He doesn’t remember how long he’s been living in Night Vale now. All of the days almost blend together, as though they aren’t flowing from one to the next properly. Sometimes Cecil talks about things in a single airing of his show that Carlos could _swear_ happened over the course of two or three days, and sometimes he talks about things that haven’t even happened yet! Carlos thought that it was because Cecil just _knew_ somehow, like he was so smart that he knew _everything_ that happened in his town, but….

There are so many things Carlos doesn’t know, and so many more things that he doesn’t know he knows, but the worst are the things he knows that he knows, but doesn’t actually know them. His work at Strex, for instance. He thinks it must have been important, those experiments he did, but he can’t remember why or what they were for. He remembers other things, less important things. He remembers that he was of some importance in the company, which is why his injection were a higher dosage than others. He remembers that his work had something to do with travel, but that seems odd to him because he certainly never traveled anywhere for his job. He thinks he would remember _that_ , at the very least. He feels like the traveling was important somehow though, _very_ important, and he wishes he could remember more. He would like to use his science to help Night Vale. He loves Night Vale so much.

The people are incredibly kind to him. They smile at him and greet him with guttural moans when he passes them on the street. They give him runestones and soft meats, which is good because being a scientist doesn’t seem to pay much, and he can only afford to eat at Big Rico’s so often, and it’s not very often. He doesn’t know how he gets paid, or when it will happen, or where the money comes from, or even where it _goes_ , but he knows he needs more of it. The sun is _hot_ , and it frustrates him. It’s like it _does_ actually work right, but only in this odd little town, and he just can’t seem to afford to keep his house cool enough. He barely even knows how he _got_ the house to begin with, and keeping it supplied and taken care of has been… daunting. He’s never had so much authority over his life before, and he’s not entirely sure what to do with it.

He spends almost all of his time in the lab, a building that _has_ to stay cool in order to keep the equipment running, and works himself nearly to death. His colleagues tell him he needs to go home and get some rest, and he tells them they’re right before wishing them a good evening. They leave, but he doesn’t. No one has noticed the cot he’s been hiding in a closet since the time a colleague made it very obvious he did _not_ approve of him spending the night. Something about safety hazards, or maybe the man had just been having a bad day. Carlos hadn’t known a human could become so feverishly enraged with so little provocation, or contain so much blood. No one had questioned the mess, and he hadn’t offered an explanation. Anything to keep his secret. Anything to keep from going home to die in the heat.

He stares at samples of something he doesn’t recognize, and makes thoughtful sounds as though he understands them. He runs his hand through his hair for effect, making extra sure to seem completely engrossed in the science he still doesn’t fully understand. His hair is long. He doesn’t remember it ever being so long. He doesn’t remember it ever _growing_ , now that he thinks about it. It’s long and it’s shaggy and feels coarse, like it hasn’t been taken care of. He hasn’t been taking care of it, he remembers. _That_ he remembers. He runs a hand through his hair again and makes more thoughtful sounds, but actually feels thoughtful this time. He would probably feel much cooler if he got a haircut.

There only seems to be one place to get a haircut in town that doesn’t have intimidating photos of gorgeous models plastered all over its windows, and the man inside seems friendly enough--friendlier than all of the other friendly people Carlos has met anyway--and he knows exactly what Carlos wants him to do even though Carlos barely knows how to explain it. He’s never done this before, ask for something to be done to his hair like this.

“Will it hurt?” he asks, eyeing the scissors nervously. They look incredibly sharp, and lightly stained with things Carlos would rather not think about.

“Only if you squirm a lot,” the man, Telly, responds, and pulls his lips back in something like a smile.

Carlos gulps and sits very still, hoping the slight shaking his entire body has decided to do isn’t enough movement to bring him pain.

Telly is quite experienced and good at his job. Despite Carlos’ hair being a matted, dirty mess, he is able to cut and wash it with very little difficulty, and even less injury. Telly insists the bleeding will stop soon as he dabs some sort of powder onto the minor cuts striping his ears, but Carlos doesn’t mind. He _did_ ask the man to use scissors on him, after all. Getting your ears cut must just be another part of the process.

Telly is brushing the hair from his shoulders when a sudden gut-wrenching screech pierces through the air, and they both turn to see someone standing outside the window, pointing and shrieking.

“Do you know her?” Telly asks, but Carlos doesn’t. She’s no one he’s ever seen before, just some citizen out for a stroll, he thinks. But her eyes are wide and dark like a stormy ocean, and her shrieking maw is gaping ever wider. She looks… _angry_ , and her anger and her screeching only seem to increase when a curious passerby stops to see what she’s so alarmed about, and _joins her_.

Telly puts his hand on Carlos’ shoulder, and Carlos near jumps out of his skin. He looks up at the older man. He’s very solemn, like he knows something, possibly about this, possibly just in general. He furrows his brow and pats Carlos’ shoulder a couple times.

“I have a back door, you know,” he says, and Carlos nods.

“But… your money,” he says, reaching for his wallet, hoping he’ll find some in there. Telly squeezes his shoulder, looks down at him, smiles.

“Don’t worry,” he says, barely managing to keep the corners of his mouth upturned. “I don’t need it. I won’t need it.” He squeezes Carlos’ shoulder harder, his expression hard as stone. “Don’t. Worry.”

His words are frightening, but Carlos tries to listen to them. He gets out of the barber chair slowly, the eyes of the shrieking onlookers following his every movement. He doesn’t know how they manage to keep making such a painfully shrill sound when they haven’t paused for breath _even once_. He sees the reflection of the door Telly had spoken of in the mirror, and cautiously makes his way towards it. The onlookers still stare, still point, still scream. They don’t seem particularly interested in going after Carlos, just bringing attention to him, and he wishes he knew why. Everyone knows him, and everyone likes him, but no one has _ever_ acted this way towards him before.

He makes it through the door and closes it behind him, and the shrieking immediately stops. He’s in a dusty back room full of boxes of supplies that haven’t been touched in what looks like decades. He picks his way through the clutter and the cobwebs, stopping for just a moment in front of an old mirror. He cleans some of the dust off of it with the sleeve of his lab coat and catches his reflection one more time, and he smiles. He looks handsome, he thinks. Better than he did before anyway, when he’d forgotten about washing and brushing. He takes some fancy looking shampoo and a hairbrush out of some boxes. They’re probably expensive, he thinks, but Telly _had_ said he didn’t need Carlos’ money….

He keeps climbing through the messy back room until he finds the back door, and opens it, immediately being blinded by the blazing desert sun. He blinks a few times, trying to bring the world into focus, and is greeted by the sight of an open wasteland. The dusty ground crunches under his feet as he takes a few cautious steps outside. Sagebrush and barrel cacti dot the landscape, and off in the distance he sees the mountains that surround the town, so far away and yet so easily seen over the flat desert terrain that they almost look like a painted backdrop to the world.

He looks behind him, back into the building, but the door has already closed, and he has only the wasteland now. It's strange, because Telly’s shop was in the center of town, so where did the wasteland come from anyway?

He looks down at the hair care supplies in his hands, feels the breeze blowing through his significantly shorter hair, and shrugs before trudging his way back to town.

Some faint whispers enter into his mind, sliding along the inside of his skull so weakly, as though he just isn’t close enough to the speaker to hear them properly. He thinks the whispers are talking about him. He thinks the whispers are talking about his hair. He hopes the whispers find it handsome. He hopes that’s what the whispers are about.


	4. Chapter 4

Cecil is _scary_ , and Cecil does _not_ like Carlos’ short hair.

Carlos knows this because of how _angry_ the entire town is, _still_ is, even though Telly is gone, and Carlos feels _terrible_.

He’d thought the whispers in his mind were kind, that they were talking about his handsome new look, but they had not been kind. The town was shocked, enraged even. _Cecil_ was enraged. He kept going on and on about Carlos’ hair; how short it had been cut, how it was no longer perfect. And who’s fault was that? Who had cut it so short?

 _Telly_ , of course.

And he _told them_. He _told them_ it was Telly, and he _told them_ where to find him. Carlos could hear the angry cries of the mob late into the night as he cowered in the lab, not daring to go home and unable to fall asleep from fear.

The dust has long since settled, the crowd dispersed, but Carlos still doesn’t dare go outside. Something awful has happened, he knows, and he has been the cause of it. A man is probably dead, and it’s all his fault. It’s an odd feeling, he thinks, knowing he’s responsible for a man’s death when he wasn’t even trying to kill him. He runs his fingers through his significantly shorter hair and tries not to cry. He wishes he hadn’t gotten it cut. He wishes the man who says he loves him could love _all_ of him, regardless of how long or short all of him is.

The days flow together, time moving in disjointed bursts; sometimes minutes moving like hours, sometimes hours moving like seconds. Carlos notices this, though no one else seems to. There’s something wrong with the time in Night Vale, something very serious. He wishes he knew what it was so he could fix it. Night Vale is a scary town filled with people he doesn’t want to talk to or be around anymore, and he often thinks of leaving and finding somewhere new but… he’s here, and they’re here, and they all belong here together. They belong with each other, regardless of how scary they are, and they _are_ very scary, but… Carlos wants to fix it, fix the time and everything. He wants to fix Night Vale and live happily there. He just has to figure out where to start.

He throws himself back into his science with twice as much determination. He _needs_ to learn about the science here. He can’t _fix_ the science here until he does, but it takes so much _time_ , and time is _broken_! He has no way of knowing how much progress he’s making, or how quickly he’s making it. What if he’s learning less instead of more? He shakes his head. It can’t work that way, he thinks. Time and memory are different things, inextricably woven together. He can’t be learning _less_ as time goes forward. It doesn’t work that way… right?

He thinks that maybe before he tries to fix all of Night Vale, he should try to fix time. Just so he knows how long it takes him to fix everything else, and also so he doesn’t go crazy thinking of questions like that.

His hair is short, and he is handsome, no matter what anyone on the radio, or otherwise, says. But mostly his short hair keeps him cool, and Carlos is incredibly glad about that. Time might not work in Night Vale, but the sun certainly does.

It’s odd, he thinks. He can’t quite remember taking notice of time at Strex, but he’s sure it worked properly. But whenever he was outside, he never felt hot or cold, and the day was never too bright or dark. Time may have worked at Strex, but the sun didn’t, and he wonders… he wonders if Strex and Night Vale could be related somehow, but… he’d never even _heard_ of Night Vale the entire time he worked at Strex. But then, he doesn’t know much of what he _did_ hear of at Strex, so… what if this was one of those things he just couldn’t remember again?

He wishes he could remember. He wishes that a lot nowadays. The sun and the time… there _has_ to be a connection, but he doesn’t have enough science to figure out what it is, and his dwindling number of colleagues are too busy daring each other to touch the nonexistent house to help him.

He wonders when he became so focused and dedicated. He doesn’t feel quite like himself anymore, but in some ways he feels even more like himself than he ever has. His mind has never been clearer. He thinks that helps.

He thinks a lot of things these days. He thinks that if time is broken, he should determine the exact manner in which it is broken before he attempts to fix it. He thinks that the pizza at Big Rico’s is probably not entirely edible, but he enjoys eating it anyway. He thinks he should find out how to get new scientists for the lab to fill in the spaces left by the multiple tragic deaths that have occurred. And he thinks that Cecil is probably someone he should avoid. He _likes_ Cecil well enough, but… he has a power he may or may not be aware of. The listeners will take everything he says to heart, listen to every word as though they’re instructions to be followed and carried out quickly and efficiently. He _seems_ to use it mostly for keeping their lives ordered and safe, or mostly safe anyway, but when he uses it for awful and selfish purposes….

Carlos thinks it might be best to avoid him for a while. At least until his hair grows back a bit.

He also thinks it might be a good idea to see if time is broken in the same way all over town.

He has a watch. It’s a real watch that tells real time, which is completely useless in Night Vale, but he wears it anyway. It was given to him by Strex, though he can’t remember why, but he thinks it wasn’t to help him with his work. He thinks it was a reward of some sort, but he doesn’t remember what he would have been rewarded for. He doesn’t remember ever being successful at his job. It’s a nice watch. It must have been quite an achievement.

What he needs is a watch that can tell Night Vale time though, and that seems just a bit impossible. The clocks in Night Vale don’t work; that’s something he already knows. He takes his watch apart, learns every piece inside and out, and how they fit back together so that it still works. He takes apart a Night Vale watch. The pieces aren’t the same, but enough of them will work together that he can mesh the two into one larger timepiece. It won’t fit into his own watch, not with the oddly shaped gears from the Night Vale one, so he puts them in a slim black box and fixes a clock face to the front of it. It hums softly, but angrily, as though its existence flies in the face of what should be possible and what should never be attempted. Carlos doesn’t care. He’s going to go outside, and he’s going to suffer through all of the looks and the anguished wailing, and he’s going to find out what is happening to the time.

He stands at the door, his hand on the knob, unable to turn it. He considers getting a hat, but remembers he doesn’t own a hat, and also that it’s very hot outside and he shouldn’t wear a hat. He worries at his lower lip, sighs anxiously, and leaves the lab.

He is surprised to find there is no one on the streets; no one to point at his head, howl in disapproval, gnash their teeth in despair. It’s pleasant, but worrisome. He hasn’t heard any whispers in his skull all day, so he isn’t aware of any community functions happening, but… where else would everyone be?

It’s an odd sensation wandering the empty streets. It feels… safer, ironically, as though the things he can’t see are far less dangerous than those he can, but he thinks that’s just his mind playing tricks. Or just being wrong.

A commotion towards the center of town draws his attention, though he doesn’t know _how_ it draws his attention since he’s nowhere near the center of town. It’s like an odd tugging sensation at the back of his mind, like maybe he should go there. Maybe he’s needed there. Maybe there’s something important happening.

There’s a City Council meeting happening, and he’s surprised at how many people are attending, how many people can fit inside the tiny building. Or _is_ it tiny? It _seems_ tiny, but he finds there’s room to spare when he enters, despite nearly every citizen of Night Vale being in attendance, as well as a few of the angels that don’t actually exist, and probably aren’t actually there. He takes a seat, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know enough about the town to be civically responsible about it. They talk about a canyon that is most likely filled with radon, or else it is just very poorly named. It has warning signs in it, and a door, but they don’t want there to be anymore. Carlos doesn’t care, but he also doesn’t remember what he _did_ want to care about. He thinks the angels are staring at him. He thinks he should find out what he’s holding in his hands.

The _time_. He remembers. The clock is ticking backwards, which he’s certain shouldn’t be happening. Partially because he’s _pretty sure_ time doesn’t work like that, but mostly because the gears shouldn’t be able to turn in reverse that way. But there it goes, ticking backwards second by second, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, as though it’s counting down to some event, and he can only imagine what sort of horrible thing a clock in Night Vale would count down to.

Old Woman Josie says she agrees with removing the signs. Something about a door. What’s behind the door? He doesn’t care; he has to _focus_. The clock is moving faster, rapidly increasing its speed, still backwards, the angry humming growing louder. The door will give lead poisoning. The clock moves faster, the hour hand almost reaching the twelve, the minute hand close behind. What does it _mean_? The humming is louder, but no one take notice. The door is a time bomb. So close now. The humming is deafening; can't anyone _hear_ it?  _Ticking_ time bomb, that door. _That door_. The clock hits twelve. It stops ticking.

Carlos jumps to his feet. “There is no time! No more time!”

Everyone wrenches their heads around to stare at him, but he doesn’t care. He’s already running out of the building.


	5. Chapter 5

There was no bomb, he thinks. Or at least he never hears about one on the radio, or in the whispers. He’d probably hear about a bomb if there had been a bomb, or at least he assumes he would. He never can tell what he’ll hear about with the radio. The things that are reported on are almost random, and it seems like the _important_ things are never discussed much, while unimportant things are talked about at length. There are farmer’s markets that don’t sell produce, except now they do, he guesses, though he still has yet to see that happen. There are two-headed boys, only no one thinks that’s odd, and also no one likes the first head as much as the new head. Carlos feels bad for that poor head, though he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t even know the boy, or his heads. He should feel nothing for him.

He thinks the radio is affecting him, if that’s how that works. That might be how that works.

It’s hard to not be affected by it. Cecil’s voice is… well, it hardly seems real. Sometimes Carlos isn’t even entirely sure it’s _human_ , but… well, he _seems_ human enough, and Carlos would rather not start asking questions about Cecil that might upset him. Not after what the haircut did.

He wishes he could put that out of his mind. Cecil really only ever says the nicest things about Carlos, but Carlos is finding it harder and harder to forget that Cecil may have caused the death of a man just because he was doing his _job_. He wishes he could forget, that he could forgive Cecil for being so awful about something so small. He doesn’t know why he wants to forgive him. It’s just… he really is so interesting, isn’t he? Carlos thinks he’s interesting anyway. And he’s so nice, _usually_. And he’s a great media resource. He’s always talking to important people in town, or has other people talking to them, or just has some way to get in touch with them. He interviewed a Hooded Figure, and was the first person to do that! He’s brave like that, Carlos thinks. He’s brave to talk about all of these things on the radio when so many terrible things happen around him and sometimes _to_ him. And, well… he’s also handsome, isn’t he? Carlos thinks that, thinks he’s handsome.

But _still_.

The Cecil thing… it’s a line he has to walk carefully, whether he wants to or not, and he doesn’t think he wants to, not at the moment anyway. But it’s obvious that Cecil keeps Carlos safe, even if he doesn’t realize it himself. The town responds to him in almost the same manner Cecil does, just much less infatuated, which is good because Carlos would scream if every person in town claimed to love him. He doesn’t even like most of them because they’re just so _weird_ , or racist, or just jerks. For all the love the citizens of Night Vale have for their town, Carlos would think the people in it would be much nicer, but… that just _really_ doesn’t seem to be the case.

And why don’t they _question_ things? Sure, it’s _dangerous_ to, what with the City Council and the Hooded Figures and the Sheriff’s Secret Police and all, but just going along with everything that’s told to you is an _awful_ idea. _Why_ do they have a harbor, and _why_ is the completely unnecessary drawbridge made of _upholstery_? What’s going on with the Dog Park? The post office? The Glow Cloud? And a _dragon_? He has _five heads_! Why does he need _five heads_?

Carlos wonders more and more why he stays, but… he supposes he has nowhere else to go. He can’t go back to Strex because they’re _still_  worse than Night Vale, and he doesn’t even know if anything else _exists_ because he hardly even know if where he currently is actually exists. So he stays, and he makes the best of it, and he studies the clocks, and he refuses to touch the nonexistent house, and he eats at Big Rico’s, and he tries not to stare when he sees Cecil, and he sees Cecil a lot more often than he’d really like to.

It’s the scientist thing. Everyone assumes he knows _everything_ because he’s a scientist, like they’ve never seen one before. But they _have_ , he knows that, because they have a community college, and they have scientists there. Carlos has seen them. They’re not great, he knows, but they _are_ scientists. Carlos is just the favorite scientist now, also Cecil’s fault, he knows. Science is just a good excuse for Cecil to try to see him, and he uses that excuse as often as he can.

First it was the floating cat, but Carlos didn’t want to investigate the cat. The cat honestly scares him, and he’s also pretty sure it’s not actually a cat. And then he’d just showed up at Carlos’ _house_ one day, just _there_ at his _door_ , asking about the _moon_! Carlos hardly knew what to do. Talk to _Cecil_? About _science_?! So he’d hid under his desk and hoped Cecil would leave, but he’d just stood there shouting questions through the door, like he _knew_ Carlos was there. What is the moon? What is it doing? It’s just so weird, isn’t it?

He had sounded sad when he’d finally given up and left, and Carlos had felt terrible about hiding from him, but he’s still glad he didn’t open the door. He doesn’t know about the moon. He’s not sure if he’s even seen it, though he thinks he must have at some point. He tries to not look at the night sky in Night Vale because it makes him feel empty, like he’s been drained of his thoughts and his feelings and is being swallowed whole by the uncaring void. He doesn’t remember if Strex had a moon, but that doesn’t surprise him. His memories from his time at Strex are even harder to figure out than Night Vale.

He remembers some of it though. The thing about travel: it wasn’t _him_ travelling, it was the _subjects_ , but he must’ve never gotten it right because they certainly never went anywhere. And he doesn’t know how they would have gotten anywhere while strapped to a _table_ anyway. The travelling experiments were important though--top priority, even--so he must not have been doing it wrong if they just let him keep doing it, despite not sending anyone anywhere. He doesn’t remember where he was supposed to send them either, or for how long, or how they were supposed to come back.

He thinks he remembers something else, but it’s faint, so faint that he doesn’t know if it’s real or a drug-induced hallucination, like a remnant from all the injections he had at Strex. It’s something that has been worming away at his mind since he first arrived in Night Vale, and he thinks it might be more important that he could ever have imagined.

Desert Bluffs.

It’s a town like Night Vale, only not. It seems they’re rivals, in school sports at least, but Carlos thinks that it might go deeper than that. He thinks the towns might be rivals in existence. There was an incident involving a commercial jet and a school gym. Cecil blamed Desert Bluffs, and Carlos didn’t think much of it because he didn’t think much back then, still pretty heavily under the influence of his injections and all. But he thinks a lot now, almost all the time, and he thinks that the jet and Desert Bluffs and Strex might be connected.

He thinks… he thinks he _lived_ in Desert Bluffs. At least, at some point, possibly. He _knows_ he lived at Strex for what seems like his entire life, but… he thinks he _must_ have had a life before Strex. For one thing, he had to have been a child at some point. And for another, he never saw children at Strex, so that probably wasn’t a thing they kept around or allowed on premises, unless they were test subjects, of course.

He has so many thoughts in his head now: things he knows, things he doesn’t know but wishes very badly that he did; things he somewhat remembers, things he wishes he didn’t remember. They feel so connected, but he can’t seem to connect them, and he wishes he could. What if it could help him figure out what’s wrong with time? What if it could help him figure out what’s wrong with Night Vale? The Hooded Figures, the Dog Park, the angels… Carlos is almost certain those angels exist, but for what reason? It’s difficult to learn the true nature of things, especially when those things don’t want to cooperate with their true nature.

Carlos looks up at the night sky. He doesn’t remember why he was standing outside, or how long he’s been standing there, but he doesn’t mind that he is. The cool night wind feels nice, blowing through his ever-growing hair. Soon it will be long enough. Soon Cecil will think he is perfect again. Soon he will say wonderful things about him on the radio, and Carlos won’t have to be afraid to go outside anymore.

He looks up at the night sky and sighs, and the void sighs with him. It’s empty and alone, just like him. He wonders if it wishes to not be alone anymore, just like him.

He thinks maybe he should talk to Cecil.


	6. Chapter 6

There are lights in Radon Canyon.

Carlos is concerned about this because it seems very scientific, and he believes he should be concerned about scientific things. But mostly this presents a perfect opportunity to talk to Cecil, and he thinks he should take it.

He stares at the number in his phone for what feels like hours, but is probably more like days. He imagines pressing the “Call” button, hearing Cecil’s voice, so cheerful and smooth. Carlos will say something charming, mention the lights, and Cecil will think he’s so smart and impressive, more than he already does.

But those things don’t happen. Instead, Carlos stares at the number and agonizes about calling him. It’s so simple, right? To call someone. To call someone who is in love with you. Who talks about you on the radio with little concern for what he’s saying. Who thinks you’re perfect and wonderful.

Who doesn’t actually know who or what you are.

It’s so easy to press a button and hear a voice, have a conversation. Form sounds into words; words that link together into phrases, phrases that make coherent and intelligent sentences. Sentences like “I think you are very interesting”, or “your voice makes my soul feel clean”. Maybe even a sentence like “would you like to stare at the lights in Radon Canyon with me?”, or something like that. Carlos doesn’t have any specific ideas. He just… he _wants_ to talk to Cecil, but he’s _so sure_ he’ll just mess it up somehow. He’s messed up a lot of things already. He doesn’t want to mess this up to.

He thinks maybe it’s just the phone. He’s _awful_ with phones. He never had one before he came to Night Vale, and he’s hardly used the one he has now. He thinks maybe talking to Cecil in person would be better somehow, even though that went badly last time too. Or at least that’s how it felt to Carlos. Cecil seemed to enjoy it just fine, if things said on his show were any indication. Carlos doesn’t understand how it can be so worrying to impress a man who is _already_ entirely impressed with him, but he _is_ worried. What if he doesn’t try hard enough one time, and it turns out there was a certain amount of effort required to make Cecil like him, no matter how small a required amount it might be?

And Cecil is… geez, he’s _amazing_ , isn’t he? He’s kind of a celebrity, at least in Night Vale, which is the only location on the planet Carlos really cares about, making Cecil the only celebrity he really cares about, and he supposes he _does_ care about him, in some way. He doesn’t know what way that is. He’s never enjoyed another person’s existence before. He’s never had a friend. He worries he might not know what friendship feels like, and maybe this is it, and he’s going to mess it up.

But it doesn’t really _feel_ like friendship, or what he assumes friendship is. Cecil makes Carlos’ chest feel so warm, and his limbs so very cold. His smile makes Carlos’ heart feel like a mass of snakes fighting to swallow each other’s tails. His voice makes Carlos feel like he wants to go to sleep, but not because he’s tired. More like… because he’s _safe_ , even though he isn’t, not here. But he _feels_ that way when Cecil talks, and it’s wonderful. But when he thinks that the listeners probably feel that way too, it makes Carlos feel like he’s falling inward, deep into a yawning emptiness in his chest. It’s terrible, and it makes him hate the listeners sometimes.

He thinks those feelings probably aren’t because of friendship.

He thinks he should try calling Cecil.

He can see the lights in Radon Canyon. He can see them from his house if he sits on the roof. He does that sometimes, when he’s trying to not look at the night sky.

It would be wonderful, he thinks, to have Cecil sitting next to him on the roof. He would be very excited to spend time with Carlos, most likely. He would look handsome because he would be smiling and staring adoringly at Carlos, and Carlos… he’d be an idiot. He’d stare at his hands and blush and stammer, not be able to think of a _thing_ to say, and then he’d run, most likely to his death since he’d be on a roof and wouldn’t have the presence of mind to not run off of it.

Or maybe he could think of things to say beforehand. He could learn things about the moon, and tell them to Cecil, and he’d be so impressed. He’d think Carlos was the most intelligent person to ever exist, and he’d tell him so, and maybe say his hair looks nice again? Carlos kind of misses hearing about how nice his hair is on the radio….

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. It’s longer now. He liked it when it was short, but _Cecil_ likes it when it’s longer, so maybe he should leave it long?

Cecil….

Carlos stares at his phone. His number is still highlighted. He’s still waiting for the courage to call him.

He groans and goes back inside.

There are still lights in Radon Canyon. There have been for a few days. The number in his phone is still highlighted. It has been for a few days. He thinks he might go crazy if he doesn’t find the courage to call him. He thinks he might scream and tear out his hair, and then he thinks maybe they would run _him_ out of town because he would have ruined his _own_ hair. Or would Cecil not let them? Would he want Carlos to stay? Would he see his fear and agony and make him feel better?

Cecil _really_ likes his hair though….

The weekend is almost over. There is no phone in his hands, no man on his roof.

It bothers Carlos that he’s so unable to talk to Cecil. He feels so silly. He can talk to anyone else about any _thing_ else, but… _Cecil_ is just… it’s different. It makes him feel so strange inside to think about him. Like someone has lit a candle inside his ribs, and it burns for days and days. And when Cecil talks, it’s like the candle has been knocked over, and it’s set everything on fire. Everything in his chest going up in an all-consuming blaze, and it’s terrifying, and it’s wonderful, and Carlos wishes he could find a way to _tell_ Cecil all of this. Tell him that… he thinks Cecil makes him happy.

This is a worrisome thought, partially because Cecil is still more than just a little scary. Carlos can’t tell what exactly about him seems so wrong about him, but he’s sure there’s more to him than there seems to be, like he’s lying about the exact nature of his existence. But mostly, Carlos isn’t used to being happy.

He thinks he must have been happy at some time before Strex, but he can’t remember it. And emotion wasn’t something he was able to experience much of at Strex. The daily injections saw to that, until they didn’t. But even then, he never felt happy. Not at _Strex_.

He wants to be happy, but mostly he’s afraid of being happy. He’s not sure he can continue doing whatever it takes to keep that happiness, and he’s even less sure that he can handle losing it. It’s nice to just _feel_ it; to hear Cecil’s voice, and think about his eyes, and feel that candle in his chest. He thinks that’s enough for him, but he knows that’s not actually the case. He can already feel the desire for more happiness, and he knows the feeling will only grow.

He _has_ to talk to Cecil.

There are no lights in Radon Canyon, but he is still on his roof, still staring at the phone, and he has never felt so foolish. Things have to change. They can’t stay like this. He can’t be afraid forever.

The lights have been gone for days, and Carlos finds himself standing outside the radio station. His phone is still in his hand, the name highlighted. He sighs and grits his teeth, putting the device away. If he can’t _call_ Cecil, he’ll just go _see_ him instead.

“Carlos!” Cecil happily exclaims as he walks into the sound booth. He doesn’t know why no one stops him from walking in. He also doesn’t know why Cecil throws out his arms as if to hug him, and Carlos flinches away instinctively. Cecil blushes and clears his throat, regaining his composure. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk,” Carlos says, because it’s true.

“Oh? What about?”

Carlos’ heart pounds against his ribs, the candle is a bonfire. “I… uh….” He didn’t think of anything to talk about. _He didn’t think of anything to talk about before coming to talk to Cecil. He-_

“Are you doing anything for dinner tonight?” Cecil asks, smiling a little crookedly as he leans against his desk, twirling the wire of his headset around his finger.

“I… have dinner, yes,” Carlos says. “At Big Rico’s, usually.”

“Oh,” is all Cecil says, and he sounds a little disappointed, like maybe Carlos _shouldn’t_ have dinner?

“There were lights,” Carlos continues. “Did you see them? In the canyon?”

“Oh, that?” Cecil says, immediately brightening again. “Yes, actually! It was very beautiful.”

“I think it might have been science,” says Carlos, trying to appear very serious and official about it.

“The lights or the sounds?” Cecil asks as he glances at his watch, and Carlos thinks maybe he has to do his show soon.

“There were sounds?”

“Of course, Carlos.” Cecil smiles at him again, and Carlos feels like he needs to sit down because his legs don’t seem to want to hold him anymore. “Maybe you weren’t close enough to hear them? I went down to the canyon to watch a bit of it, and there were _definitely_ unintelligible sounds too.”

“Oh, you… you went there.” The candle in his ribcage is snuffed. If only Carlos hadn’t been so afraid, he could have been at the canyon with Cecil.

“Well, I didn’t go _into_ the canyon, but-”

“I think,” Carlos begins. “I think… this isn’t _right_. This… shouldn’t be this way.”

“With… the lights?” Cecil asks, clearly confused.

“Yes, I think,” Carlos continues. “And with us. I’m… scared. I’m scared for us. I’m scared for….”

Cecil’s eyes are wide as he expectantly waits to hear what Carlos is so afraid of, but Carlos is too afraid to tell him about it. He sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. It’s getting longer, but not long enough.

“Just… ask your listeners about the lights for me? I just… because of the _science_ and all….”

Cecil smiles, wide and warm, and it melts away the hurt in Carlos’ chest. “Of course, Carlos. I’ll always help with your scientific inquiries.”

Carlos smiles too. Cecil is impressed with his science.

“In fact,” he continues. “I have to start my show in a moment, so I’ll make sure to mention it today.”

“Thank you, Cecil,” Carlos says, and it seems as though Cecil feels the same snakes squirming around in his heart as Carlos feels when he says his name. “You’re… very nice. I’m going to go, uh… do more science now.”

“Of course!” Cecil agrees, not wanting to keep him from his job either. “Don’t forget your car keys.”

“My… my _what_?”


	7. Chapter 7

He has a _car_.

He doesn’t know _how_ he has a car, or _why_ , but he does, and it’s… it’s _nice_. It’s a “sporty hybrid coupe”, or at least that’s what the whispers in his skull tell him. He knows how to drive it too, but he’s certain that shouldn’t be possible. He’s never driven a car before, or… at least he _thinks_ he’s never driven a car before. But it’s more than just knowing how to drive a car; he knows how to drive _this specific car_. He knows that it pulls to the right a little, and he has to compensate. He knows he can go for a couple weeks before he should consider filling the tank again because he knows he drives it so little, and because it’s a hybrid, but doesn’t know what a hybrid is. He finds a license in his pocket, an insurance card in the glove box, and the title to the car with his name on it at home.

He doesn’t know how any of these things came to exist. He supposes they must have _always_ existed, and he just forgot he even had a car, but that seems so unlikely. When would he have gotten a car? He doesn’t have money for a car. He barely has money for _food_ , so there’s no way he could have afforded a _car_. Strex never gave him a car, he’s certain of that. He never would have needed a car while he was still stuck in that awful compound.

But it’s not just the car, it’s the things he knows about _owning_ a car. He knows he needs to get the oil changed every three thousand miles. He knows that in the desert heat, his battery will die more quickly, and he’ll need to replace it every couple years. He knows that he needs to keep an eye on his tire treads, because there’s no need to change them for the winter season, and they’ll go bald without him realizing it if he doesn’t check them. He knows these things and he doesn’t know how. They reverberate in his head like the echoes of a dream that he hasn’t entirely woken up from, and it frightens him.

There are so many things that frighten him. So many normal, everyday things that occur in his life that he should think are routine, but they’re not. He _knows_ they’re not. He sleeps at home now instead of huddled in the back of the lab, because his home is _cooled_ now, and he doesn’t understand why. His lights turn on when he flicks the switch, the toilet flushes when he presses down the handle, and there are things to watch on the television in the living room. This all seems so wonderful--he can finally live at _home_!--but he knows these things shouldn’t be happening because he doesn’t know _how_ to make them happen. He never even bought a television; it was just there one day!

He collapses heavily onto a chair in his kitchen, the sun doing its best to shine through dirty windows and illuminate dusty floors. He hates it here. It’s dark and lonely and hard to breathe, but he can’t open a window because the sun will kill him. He sighs and slumps back in the chair, the wood biting into his shoulder blades, but he hardly cares. He runs a hand through his hair, still too short. The room is silent except for the clock that ticks as erratically as it pleases, and the dripping faucet he doesn’t know how to fix, or how to get it fixed. He’s just glad the water is clear this time, because sometimes it isn’t, and he doesn’t know what that means, but he knows it scares him. A lot of things scare him, but not as often as they should. He thinks he’s forcing himself to not be scared, or at least he _hopes_ he’s doing it himself.

The whispers are in his head again, only they’re less like whispers this time and more like someone talking at a regular volume, but down the hall a little, like they think the person they’re talking to can still hear them clearly. And maybe the person can, but only if they really want to listen to the words. Carlos doesn’t really want to listen to the words, but he hears them anyway, talking about the lights in Radon Canyon, the lights that are already gone, the lights he _could_ have gone and seen with Cecil if he hadn’t been such a coward.

He groans and lets his head fall back, hanging limply from his neck. It hurts, but that’s fine. He doesn’t think he really minds. It’s almost comforting, in a way, to be in identifiable physical discomfort for once. None of this ambiguous tightening in his chest, the this vague gnawing in his mind, as though the two were gaining partial sentience and conspiring to make his body an unlivable environment. It’s working. He hopes they’re proud.

His phone rings, the sound hanging dully in the dust-filled air, muffled by months of inattentiveness. It’s a wonder Carlos didn’t get sick more often, or at all. He doesn’t know why, but he thinks it’s Strex. It’s _probably_ Strex. Most things seem to have “Strex” as the answer. He doesn’t answer the phone; most likely just some colleague calling to say they’d blown up the lab. No wait, they hadn’t. Okay, yes, they’d definitely blown it up. Again. They would give up soon, just like they always did.

They don’t give up, calling again and again with no regard for how busy Carlos is thinking about the increasing instability of his own mind. Don’t they _care_ that his life is falling apart? Well, it’s always doing that, though, or at least it seems that way ever since he took on a life that wasn’t his. Probably a side effect of trying to have something you shouldn’t; so unfair. He sighs again and stuffs his hand into his lab coat pocket, dragging out the phone he’s been staring at for days, the phone he’d like to never stare at again, and puts it to his ear with a soft groan.

“Hello,” he says, his voice bored. Not a question, but rather a statement. He is here. He is on the phone. He is listening and he’d like to not be doing that for long.

“ _Carlos_!” an unbearably cheery voice says, and it sets off fireworks in his skull.

He jolts upright, as though someone has _screamed_ in his ear, waking him from an uneasy dream into an uneasy reality. “Cecil?!”

“I just wanted to let you know that I heard from some listeners about the lights.”

“Th-the lights,” he stammers, trying to bring his heart rate back down to an acceptable level, but his body seems to think that rib-smashing intensity is acceptable.

“Yes! In Radon Canyon?”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. Lights. In the canyon.”

“Right!” Cecil exclaims, and Carlos can hear his smile, _feel_ it inside his head. “You asked me to find out about the lights, and I did! It turns out they were from some Pink Floyd Multimedia Laser Spectacular. Isn’t that cool?”

He clutches his head and hisses, the sound matching the incessant clawing inside his skull almost perfectly. Something’s not right, he knows. He thinks he knows. “This is worse than I imagined….”

“Oh! I didn’t think it was _that_ bad, but... you’re the scientist!”

Carlos doesn’t hear the words. He can’t hear them because he’s dropped his phone, the screen face down just below his arm, hanging limply by his side. He doesn’t hear the words, but he _knows_ them, feels them in his mind like announcements pinned to a corkboard, only the paper has burned away, the thumbtacks melted, and the words are charred onto the corkboard, never to be taken down or forgotten. He thinks… he thinks Cecil is _in_ his head. Not the thought of him, or the existence of a fictional character named “Cecil”, but his voice clattering around between his ears. He doesn’t know why he never realized it before. Was he too entranced? Too influenced by what was left of whatever serum Strex pumped into his veins every day? Too wrapped up in obsessions about time and the sun? Does _everyone_ experience Cecil in their minds? Is Carlos’ mind in _Cecil’s_?

His stomach lurches and he doubles over reflexively, but he doesn’t vomit. He clutches his head, his hair _too short_ , and sobs. What if Cecil knows? What if he knows about the man who was Carlos for a day? Would he care? He had said he loved him, but… now all he talks about is Carlos, _him_ , the _real_ and _only_ Carlos, and he seems just as happy as he did that first day.

The whispers are louder, responding to his knowledge that they are _not_ whispers; they are the voice of a man who is on the radio, speaking into a microphone and out of Carlos’ skull. They-- _he_ \--says something about weekend plans, or that _Carlos_ says something about weekend plans, or that he says nothing at all about the subject, or--

“ _Stop it_!” he screams, pulling his hair so tight, his hair that is too short to be loved but not too short enough to be hated. “ _Stop being in my head_!”

And he feels them, the whispers. He _feels_ them recoil out of the folds of his brain, retreating against bone and blood vessels for just a moment before settling back in, sinking deeper, and it’s… soothing. He sits up, noticing a throbbing pain in his hands, and holds them up. He grimaces at the deep gouges his nails have dug into them, the blood welling in his palms, and he stands to wash it off. The kitchen sink rattles for just a second before clear water comes through, splashing happily against his hands, mixing pink water with brown dust. His sink is dirty. He should clean it. He never cleans it. He should start. He should know how. He _should_.

His chest feels tight, but not so tight, almost like an afterthought of some great pain that had gripped him so tightly. He can’t remember what would have ever caused him so much pain, but he’s glad it’s gone now. He wipes the sleeve of his lab coat over the window above the sink, white cotton coming away coal black, and he smiles as the sun shines through the patch he’s cleared. It’s a lovely day, or at least he thinks it’s still daytime. The sun is up, but that’s never a guarantee of an indication of time, of course. It’s still light enough to enjoy the outdoors though, regardless of time of day.

He thinks he’ll go for a drive.


End file.
